Inset: Joseph James Juarez Coles (Snow”s Funeral Home). Background: Roderick Kelvin Watson Jr. on the stand during his murder trial for killing Coles in Florida (Marion County State Attorney’s Office).
A Florida man will spend the rest of his days behind bars for shooting his fiancee’s ex-boyfriend to death at a school following a year-end awards ceremony honoring student accomplishments.
Roderick Kelvin Watson Jr., 36, was sentenced to life in prison in the death of 32-year-old Joseph James Juarez Coles after a jury convicted the defendant of first-degree murder, the Marion County State Attorney’s Office said.
“A school campus should be a place where children learn, achieve, and celebrate their accomplishments – not a place where an adult illegally brings a firearm and uses it to take another person’s life,” State Attorney Bill Gladson said in a statement. “This defendant did just that during what was supposed to be a ceremonial event attended by countless students, families, and staff. Those actions cost a man his life and exposed others, including children, to a horrific act of violence. This conviction holds the defendant accountable, and the life sentence imposed reflects the gravity of his crime.”
The shooting occurred on May 22, 2024, in the parking lot of North Marion Middle School in Citrus, about 25 miles south of Gainesville. Deputies found Coles suffering from six gunshot wounds, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit. They recovered a gun in a car with the clip pulled back, indicating that all the bullets were fired from the magazine, cops wrote.
Coles was rushed to the hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.
An investigation revealed that Watson’s fiancee and Coles shared two children who went to the school. They all attended the ceremony, and afterward an argument began because Coles wanted to take the kids to his home but the mother said they needed to stay with her because there were still two days of school left.
The mother claimed that Coles grabbed her arm, and Watson got out of his car to defend her. But witnesses said Watson was the aggressor.
Witnesses told cops that Coles saw that Watson had a gun in his hand and turned to run away, but the defendant chased him down, grabbed him by the neck and “shot him near point-blank in the upper back” multiple times. The two fell to the ground, where Watson started “beating the victim’s lifeless body” and kicked his head as he walked away.
Afterward, witnesses noted that Watson showed “no remorse” and “appeared happy about what he did.” Watson was “walking around with a smile on his face,” cops wrote.
Watson stayed at the scene and identified himself as the shooter to deputies. He claimed self-defense and took the stand during trial to state his case.
But the jury sided with prosecutors thanks to witness statements and other “vital evidence” collected at the scene, prosecutors said.
Coles was killed in a “senseless act of rage and hate,” his obituary said. He was a father of four.
“His love for his children knew no bounds; they were his world, his reason for existing. He was the epitome of a stand-up father, their hero, who lived to see his children happy,” the obituary reads.
